I am putting a lot of weight on the new Seth Rogan film. My guess is that Pineapple Express will be filled with hilarity and be the best movie of the summer. In effort to be the best movie of the summer, Seth and James Franco have been starting to push the film.
During the MTV Movie Awards, the two were up to present an award and pulled out a giant bag of “fake weed” and proceeded to light one up. On stage. Live.
[PG13(?) video -- you have to submit your birth date]
Franco insists that the bag of marijuana and the joint were fake. But MTV, who wrote the scripted presentation involving the weed, tried to jump ship moments before they went on. The station wanted to pull the joke at the last minute and told them they couldn’t actually light up on television. James and Seth did the bit anyway and as they pulled out the contraband, the cameras pulled out wide. Nothing could really be seen from the aired version.
“MTV wrote it! … Then backstage there was this big commotion: ‘You guys can’t say that,’” Franco said. “It says right in the script: ‘Lights fake joint.’”
He liked the bit, saying: “that was the joke, because the No. 1 question we get about ‘Pineapple Express’ is, ‘What kind of research did you guys do?’”
Franco said he was disappointed that the cameras went wide.
“I think they killed the joke,” he said.
So what was really in the bag?
“I don’t know! MTV gave it to us.”
Whateves. TV is getting so boring now that everyone is sitting at home thinking that Rachel Ray is a terrorist in a Dunkin’ Donuts ad and having their eyes poked out by Janet Jackson’s floppy boob circa the Super Bowl.
I say any movie that can make James Franco look less like a douche bag is fine by me.
Source: MTV gave us the bag of ‘fake weed’ [Yahoo News]
Dunkin’ Donuts has pulled an ad spot featuring Rachael Ray wearing a scarf around her neck because some thought it was a subtle nod of support to Palestinians.
Does Dunkin’ Donuts really think its customers could mistake Rachael Ray for a terrorist sympathizer? The Canton-based company has abruptly canceled an ad in which the domestic diva wears a scarf that looks like a keffiyeh, a traditional headdress worn by Arab men.
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Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott. ‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column. ‘‘Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.’’
The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin’ Donuts decided it’d be easier just to yank the ad.
Said the suits in a statement: ‘‘In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.’’
The terrorists have won. Or maybe we’ve just gone collectively insane.
I was blissfully unaware of both the commercial and the the controversy surrounding it until seeing a link on memeorandum this morning. But, seriously?
It’s true that wearing the keffiyah as a fashion symbol has been a recurring trend among Palestinian sympathizers and various hipsters over the years. But Ray’s scarf doesn’t look anything like Yasser Arafat’s.
Further, the terrorists wear headdresses because that’s how men throughout the Middle East and North Africa dress. It’s a protective covering for the head in brutally hot climates. In any case, none of them are paisley.
The iconic “spider-web” black-and-white keffiyeh is often displayed symbolically by members of Arafat’s Fatah party (which more generally uses yellow as its party colour), although it has never been able to expropriate it as their exclusive symbol. The zig zag style of stitching is sometimes described as symbolic of their historic struggle and their inability to progress towards their objectives without having to avoid obsticles. This is in contrast to how many members of the radical leftist PLO factions (such as PFLP, PFLP-GC DFLP) prefer the checkered red keffieyhs — red being both the traditional colour of the workers’ movement and the red scarf supposedly more indicative of a bedouin and rural (thus poorer, more popular) background. The Islamist factions, such as Hamas, use green — representative of the Islamic faith — as a party color, but for keffiyehs they stick to the traditional black-and-white or red variants, with no particular preference evident. While widely known, this color symbolism is by no means universally accepted by all Palestinians, and its importance should not be overstated — red or black-and-white scarves are used by Palestinians of all political stripes, as well as by those with no particular political sympathies.
But, just to be safe, we should assume that every white chick wearing a scarf is a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. Ray’s lucky her ad’s just been canceled and she hasn’t been hauled off to Gitmo for questioning.
UPDATE: Via Steven Taylor, I see that Tom Grant has discovered a much more egregious example of terror chic:
These fiends are everywhere. (While Taylor is reminded of an old Monty Python sketch about communists, it seems more to me like Ray Stevens’ “Santa Claus is Watching You.”)
Meanwhile, Doug Mataconis thinks sympathy for Arafat is the least of Ray’s crimes.
(And while we’re on the subject, what’s with the extraneous “a” in Ray’s first name? Perhaps another homage to Arafat? Or . . . Al Qaeda?)
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has even caught Meghan McCain — daughter of Juan McCain, hero of the Reconquista — wearing a purple plaid scarf keffiyah! Gawker has the photographic evidence. Nick Denton’s terrorist loving staff thinks it’s funny. They won’t think it’s funny, though, when the Straight Talk Express rams into Gawker HQ and explodes!
I do apologize, but Shayne Lamas totally sounds like the name of a tranny hailing from the Midwest.
Regardless, Lamas won the grand prize of a tv engagement that will last 2 months before she finds “The Bachelor” guy, Matt Grant, in bed with some Russian prostitute circa Sean Penn pre-reconciled divorce. Shayne even scored a 6 page spread in the Girls Gone Wild magazine. Before you go rushing out to buy a couple of copies be warned that there is no nudity and Lamas prattles on about how she jumped on the reality tv train to find “true love.”
Right…just like those C.U. Next Tuesday bitches from “The Hills” are looking to make the world a better place by ending starvation and Rachel Ray isn‘t sponging fame from the teat of Oprah.
Source: Bachelor Winner Poses in Girls Gone Wild [People]
British model/actress Elizabeth Hurley is planning an alternative career as a TV celebrity chef.
That’s right Rachel Ray… and she’s much hotter than you! Can’t you just picture this woman holding a nice, juicy, golden brown turkey leg?
The British 42-year-old, whose resume includes actress, model, film producer, bikini designer and businesswoman, now has her sights set on fronting her own cookery show.
And Hurley plans to use the program to teach women how to get a super-slender body like hers.
She says,
“I really want a television show on healthy eating. Maybe you’ll see me in front of the stove soon.”
source: Hurley sets sights on cooking show [fox news]
After months of silence in the face of rumors concerning her weight, her relationship with Oprah Winfrey and the state of her marriage, Food Network star Rachael Ray is finally ready to talk. She addresses tabloid claims that husband John Cusimano has cheated on her with two women.
“I think they said six actually,” she says. “I’ve known where he is every night since we’ve been married.”
As for the future of her family, Ray doesn’t foresee having children any time soon.
“I don’t have time,” she says. “I work too much to be an appropriate parent. I feel like a bad mom to my dog [Isaboo, a pit bull] some days because I’m just not here enough. I just feel like I would do a bad job if I took the time to literally give birth to a kid right now and try and juggle everything I’m doing.”
Rachael Ray paid for and Mandy Moore performed at a prom for the Enterprise, Alabama high school devastated by a tornado.
Rachael Ray made sure the students who lost eight classmates and their school in a tornado got a senior prom. The celebrity chef planned the menu and helped prepare dinner at Enterprise High School’s prom, according to a statement Thursday from publicist Georgianna Dente. The star of the syndicated “Rachael Ray” show paid for the dance, which was shot for an episode to air April 30.
“The students of Enterprise High are so courageous, given all that they’ve gone through,” Ray, 38, said in the statement. “When I heard about what happened to their school and classmates, we wanted to help.” “The prom was all about celebrating their accomplishments and honoring the classmates who tragically lost their lives,” she said.
Publicist Charlie Dougiello said Mandy Moore performed three songs at the end of the prom.
A very nice gesture on both their parts. Sure, they’re getting publicity for it but likely not all that much. And, Ray, certainly, doesn’t need it.
New York Fashion Week officially kicked off today, in spite of international debate regarding too thin models. The first major runway show of the event featured women of all shapes, sizes, ages and colors.
Heart Truth is part of the Red Dress project, a federal initiative spearheaded by first lady Laura Bush, which is aimed at awareness of heart disease.
Rachel Ray has gone from a small time cooking show host to a big celebrity with her own talk show starting Monday. (See a video preview of that first episode at the show website.)
She recently sat down with PEOPLE to talk about her life.
In the past eight years Rachael Ray has produced 12 bestselling cookbooks, four top-rated Food Network shows, a monthly magazine and a line of kitchenware. And on Monday she will debut her syndicated talk show Rachael Ray.
Though she’s building an impressive empire, Ray still hasn’t gotten the hang of the diva thing. Her first order of business when she first saw her new Manhattan office decked out with photos of its star? “I defaced my picture,” she tells PEOPLE in its upcoming issue. “I have a fat head – I get freaked-out looking at pictures of me. So I got a Sharpie and drew horns and a goatee.”
Ray hopes to use her devilish sense of humor on air. “We’re about having a good laugh,” says Ray, the daughter of a restaurateur mom.
The set features a basketball hoop and a foosball table, and she has a rule: “No crying. I’m not that person.” The hour won’t be “celebrity-driven,” she says, though Oprah Winfrey – who decided to spearhead the project after Ray guest-starred on Oprah last year – will be appearing on the second episode. “We want guests to sit at the kitchen table, shoot some hoops and hang out. You’re not going to find any hard-hitting, who-are-you-sleeping-with questions.”
She met John Cusimano, an entertainment lawyer, at a party four years ago and they married last September.
As for making a family? “I’m almost 40; chances are I won’t have a child,” says Ray. “I don’t have time to do that properly. That doesn’t mean one day I wouldn’t adopt.”
And it doesn’t mean that she won’t have any downtime. On a recent evening Ray could be found not behind the stove but at a graffiti-covered basement bar in Manhattan. With her husband jamming on stage, she mouthed along to every word and air-drummed over her head. “I get to go home every night to my husband,” she says. “How lucky am I?”
Pretty lucky. And pretty hot, too, for a short cooking show host about to hit 40. I mean, that’s old. Almost as old as Allie!
Anyway, here are some pics from a photo shoot she did a while back for lad mag FHM:
Click on the thumbnails for bigger versions of the photos.
“I think they said six actually,” she says. “I’ve known where he is every night since we’ve been married.” 
